Telephone system with subscriber selected audio and image announcements

Abstract

A telephone network system routes audio and image announcements into a call originating from a local telephone station of a calling party. A subscriber may select desired audio and image announcements that are generated by a network announcement facility which is operatively connected to the telephone switch system. The network announcement assembly generate audio and image announcements into the calls that are switched into the network announcement facility. The routing manager located at a customer subscriber location is interfaced with the network control point for determining the routing logic of the call to the switch as a function of factors such as location of the calling party and the time of day. The routing manager also includes an interface with the network announcement assembly so that the subscriber can generate audio and image announcements and transfer the announcements to the network announcement facility via a separate data path. A subscriber may select the desired audio and image announcements to be switched into the call originated from the calling party based on different parameters, such as the location of the calling party, the time of day and other economic or demographic factors.

We claim: 
     
       1. A telephone network system for switching audio and image announcements of a network subscriber into a call originating from a local telephone station through a switched network comprising switch means for forwarding the call made from a calling party to the network subscriber, said network subscriber being located at the premises location separate from the switched network,   network control means associated with said switch means for controlling the routing of the call through said switch means,   network announcement means operatively connected to said switch means for generating the audio and image announcements, and means for switching said call originating from said calling party into said network announcement means for receipt of the audio and image announcements,   call routing management means located at the premises location of the network subscriber and interfaced with said network control means for determining routing logic of the call through said switch means as a function of different calling parameters, said call routing management means including,   announcement management means associated with said call routing management means, said announcement management means including means for storing said audio and image announcements for transfer at a later time to said network announcement means for storage therein, said announcement management means including means for accessing the network announcement means and transmitting stored said audio and image announcements to said network announcement means,   wherein the network subscriber may select the audio and image announcements to be received by the calling party from said network announcement means.   
     
     
       2. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein the audio and image announcements are prerecorded at the location of the network subscriber, then transferred and stored at said network announcement means. 
     
     
       3. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein the audio and image announcements are prerecorded and stored at the location of the network subscriber, and including means for delivering selected announcements to said network announcement means on a real time basis for transmission to the calling party. 
     
     
       4. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein said network announcement means includes means for receiving text that is input from said network subscriber and merging the input text into speech for delivery from said network announcement means to the calling party. 
     
     
       5. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein said network announcement means is prompted for delivering the audio and image announcements by the generation of a touch tone sequence from the calling party. 
     
     
       6. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein the audio and image announcements transmitted by said network announcement means is a function of the calling party's location. 
     
     
       7. The telephone network system according to claim 1 wherein said network control means includes a routing control system, and further including interface means for communicating between said call routing management means and said routing control system. 
     
     
       8. The telephone network system according to claim 7 wherein said interface means comprises a dial-up, dial-back voice line for handling 4.8 to 9.6 Kbits of data transmission. 
     
     
       9. The telephone network system according to claim 7 wherein said interface means comprises a dedicated access line for use with packet data. 
     
     
       10. A method of routing audio and image announcements to a local telephone station of a calling party comprising the steps of storing within an announcement manager located at a premises location of a network subscriber the audio and image announcements,   transferring from the announcement manager said audio and image announcements at a later time to a network announcement facility that is associated with a telephone network switch system for storage therein,   forwarding a call made from the local telephone station to the telephone network switch system,   determining routing logic of the call within a call routing manager located at the premises location of the network subscriber by querying a network control system and routing the call through the telephone network switch system based on different calling parameters, while   switching the call to the network announcement facility while generating to the calling party said audio and image announcements announcement that are preselected by the network subscriber.   
     
     
       11. The method according to claim 10 including the steps of prerecording the audio and image announcements at the location of the network subscriber, transferring the prerecorded announcements to the network announcement facility, and then transmitting the stored announcements into the telephone network switch system and to the calling party. 
     
     
       12. The method according to claim 10 including the steps of prerecording and storing the audio and image announcements at the location of the network subscriber, and then transferring the announcements to the network announcement facility on a real time basis as the call that originates from the local telephone station is switched into the network announcement facility. 
     
     
       13. The method according to claim 10 including the steps of inputting text from the network subscriber, transferring the text to the network announcement facility, and then converting the text to speech and delivering the speech to the calling party. 
     
     
       14. The method according to claim 10 including the steps of prompting the network announcement facility to deliver preselected said audio and image announcements when the calling party generates a preselected touch tone sequence.